Silent Night
By Dana Short
Eric smiled as he looked over his Time Machine one more time before powering it up for it's first run.
Everything seemed to be in place, from the Power System he had designed out of his old Automobile Supercharger, to the Transit Coils he had modified from Tesla Coils from some old television sets.
Sure, he knew that most of his relatives, neighbors, and even a good portion of his friends considered him Mad, but he knew that wasn't true. After all, he had had a Vision.
-o-
He had been working in the field behind the stables, getting the horses in from a storm, when he had been almost hit by lightning. Now in the world of lightning, the difference between hit and almost hit are small, mostly dealing with when hit you are gone, but if you are only almost hit, sometimes you come back, just as good as new, and sometimes, like with Eric, a bit better. Ever since the "accident", he found he looked at things bit differently. Before, like everyone else, he would look at a piece of junk, and just see a piece of junk. But after, he saw, possibilities. It was so strange. Folks all over town found him to be handy at fixing up old stuff, but sometimes, it ended up doing something different from what it had before. Not that it didn't work after he was done, it was just that it didn't usually work the same way it did before, and often ended up doing something altogether different.
That was how he had ended up building the worlds first time machine. Not that he was sure anything which traveled forward and backwards in time could actually be called the first, as by it's very nature it demonstrated that Time was relative, but nonetheless, it was the first one anyone had really heard of, even of most of them didn't believe it would work.
After his final inspection, he threw the power switch, and the Power System hummed into life. As it fed a trickle of power into the Transit Coils, the entire device shuddered and hummed with power.
Everything seemed to be in order.
-o-
Slowly, Eric fed more power to the system, and activated the computer.
Now some folks may have considered his first destination as, well a bit odd, but not Eric.
If you walked up to fifty different people, and asked them each "If you had a time machine, where would you go first?" You would probably get fifty different answers, but you would notice a few patterns. Those who would want to visit Houston, on a certain day, and look at a specific grassy knoll, to see if there really was another figure there, those who would want to visit the Nevada desert, and watch the Trinity blast go off, those who would wish to look at the giant Dinosaurs, just before the comet came, and scrubbed the world clean of them, those who would like to stand on the shore, and watch as a specific lost Spaniard and his three boats stumbled upon a distant land, or stand on another section of the same shore, and watch another boat dump off a group of self exiled religious outcasts. Others may wish to park outside a small, Midwestern town by the name of Rosewell, and see if it really was a weather balloon, or something which came from much farther away which landed in that farmer’s field. There would be some who would wish to visit a great "unsinkable" ship on her never-to-be finished Maiden Voyage, and there would be those who would like to take a ride on a great airship, sometime before it’s last, ill-fated journey. Among your fifty answers, however, at least one would probably have mentioned the same destination as Eric chose.
Why Eric chose it, out of all the possible times and places of note in history, even he could not say. Maybe it was just that it was easy to type into the computer.
For whatever reason, as Eric’s machine emerged from it’s journey through time and space, Eric peered out the porthole as his computer sighted on the stars, and verified it had arrived just where he had planed, December 25th, 0000, in a small town named Bethlehem, in the middle east.
Eric hit the Pause icon on the computer, suspending the Auto-Return feature he had programmed in case he was unconscious upon arrival. He then stood, and headed for the door, never noticing as he did so that he knocked the Mouse on the floor behind him.
Emerging from his time machine, Eric savored the pre-industrial night air. It was cold, but not overly so.
He believed that there would be a inn somewhere around here, and in a stable behind it, he should find the object of his voyage, a small newborn baby. Like the three Wise men, Eric had decided that the best destination for his first voyage in his time machine was to pay his own respects to the newborn Baby Jesus.
As he walked towards the distant fires of the city, on a quest for the inn, he did not notice the curious goat which entered the open portal of his Time Machine, and began nosing the mouse to see if it was something to eat. Thus, he did not see the machine lurch, and vanish back into the time stream, it’s computer continuing it’s pre-programmed voyage through time as the goat activated the Resume Icon.
Upon reaching the city, Eric tried out his recently learned Hebrew, in an attempt to find the Inn. He had no luck. Finally, in exasperation, he asked about the Census, as he recalled that that was the reason got the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. As best he could determine, there was no Census, nor would there be one until almost three months latter, in March.
In exasperation, Eric returned to the field, to take his machine forward a few months, and try again.
Upon arriving at the field, however, he found his machine was…gone.
As he looked at the vacant field, he realized what must of happened, and that he was trapped!
Suddenly, the field was flooded by a bright light, coming from just behind him. He wheeled around, and beheld, an angel.
"Be not afraid, Eric." The angel spoke, with a, well, angelic is the only way you could describe it’s voice.
"Wha-what?" Eric asked.
"You do not belong in this time, nor in this place. Yet, you have a purpose. Let it come to pass." The Angel said, and Eric felt a great warmth reach out and embrace him.
-o-
When he awoke, he was in a stable, quite a ways outside of Bethlehem.
A time passed. He was no longer sure of the passage of time, but he knew it had been a long time.
He looked up at the approach of some voices. He saw his "owner" approaching along with another man.
The man pointed at him, and said something about "Ayore", which Eric recognized as his new name.
The man took him and lead him off by a rope.
Eventually, the man brought Eric to a woman, and he could tell that she was quite pregnant.
The man, who’s name seemed to be Joseph, placed the pregnant woman, who he referred to as "Mary" upon Eric’s back, and thus they journeyed for several days.
Finally, late one night, they paused before an Inn. Eric wasn’t sure, as it was much harder for him to follow things of late, but he believed they had almost arrived in Bethlehem. Joseph went in while Mary climbed precariously off his back, she had been in pain for the last part of the journey, and Eric thought that meant the baby was coming, soon.
Joseph, came back out, looking downfallen, and approached Mary, who was clutching her stomach, and bending over in pain. Joseph then led Eric and Mary around back to the stable, but rather than simply leaving Eric there, and going inside for the night, Joseph essentially ignored poor, tired Eric, and instead began trying his best to make Mary comfortable upon a pile of hay.
A short time later, as a small crowd of animals, locals, and other travelers gathered, the baby was born.
As Eric watched, he felt his mind returning to it’s previous levels of awareness, and looking around, he realized where he was, and what was happening. Turning to a Shepherd standing next to him, he said "It’s Jesus!"
The shepherd looked in shock at the donkey which had just spoken to him, then he looked back at the newborn baby. Suddenly, a chorus of angles appeared above, and began to sing, and all the people, along with the animals present, bowed down on their knees, and offered their respects to the newborn.
As the sun gradually rose in the east, Eric felt his mind once again returning to it’s now normal animal state, but he didn’t mind. His last clear thought, was one of thanks, for having been allowed to witness this sight anyhow.
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